Thats a shame, getting a pdf copy of the book really helped me read the SCJP/D book as I'm quadriplegic, ie no hand movement so hold a book open, turning pages etc is a bit difficult. I wish all books came with an electronic copy.

As Head First series books contain lots of images, it is difficult to produce a electronic version and it would be bulky too. That's why you don't find the ebook version or read them in online electronic libraries.

More over, PDF versions are prone to "casual copying" So it's not publisher-friendly

Admittedly, ebooks aren't publisher friendly, but hey, sometimes it costs much more to print out the entire book than to purchase it! Besides, unless you are willing to print in color, else the printed copy won't be just as good

A softcopy of the book is great, especially like the SCJP/D & SCEA whereby we have it in separate chapters. I could just copy a chapter onto my pocket pc & read it on the road, won't have to carry the entire book with me, much convenient!

Besides, the CD could contain other valuable resources besides the ebook...

Bert Bates
author
Sheriff

Joined: Oct 14, 2002
Posts: 8886

5

posted May 21, 2004 12:25:00

0

Hi guys,

CDs aren't totally dead issues for us. But they're not top priority either. HF books are so graphically oriented that the PDFs are HUGE. And we really believe in the whole HF approach, so we wouldn't consider releasing just the text - it wouldn't make sense. Anyway, just for some data I suppose we could take an informal survey:

What's the biggest PDF size you could deal with for a chapter?

Chengwei Lee
Ranch Hand

Joined: Apr 02, 2004
Posts: 884

posted May 23, 2004 06:23:00

0

Originally posted by Bert Bates: Hi guys,

CDs aren't totally dead issues for us. But they're not top priority either. HF books are so graphically oriented that the PDFs are HUGE. And we really believe in the whole HF approach, so we wouldn't consider releasing just the text - it wouldn't make sense. Anyway, just for some data I suppose we could take an informal survey:

What's the biggest PDF size you could deal with for a chapter?

Yes you're right, CDs aren't such a big issue, (at least to me). Its those good to have features, sort of like value-added kind of stuffs.

As for the max size of a single chapter PDF, I guess I can accept upto a few MB. So long as the entire book can be kept within a single CD, I guess I can still afford the space

I found cd of SCJP very useful and search feature of PDF. Uh, by the way I recommend 1 PDF and not by chapter. I do not believe that many people will study from PDF because reading from the monitor is very tiering and if they didn�t buy they will buy the book (no matter how cheap they are). I would like to point that some very successful books were online readable....

TNT<br />MCP, SCJP 1.4,

Chengwei Lee
Ranch Hand

Joined: Apr 02, 2004
Posts: 884

posted May 30, 2004 08:41:00

0

Just a thought, although I think it would be a big drain & very time & resource consuming.

Would it be better if we've audio-casts along with the PDFs in the CD. Since HF is visually stimulating, we could have the pictures/diagrams in the PDFs, then mp3s or rms audio files to "explain" the diagrams, that would in my view, makes things easier to understand & more enjoyable.

Hi Kathy & Bert, When is book scheduled to release in June ( the exact date pls ). I have postponed my exam to keep my hands on your book. Also u guys always bring out good quality in your books. I really want to appreciate that. Hats off to u guys. Waiting for your book.